


The SGC Guide To Intergalactic Hookups: An Etiquette Manual

by bomberqueen17



Series: Two-Body Problem [11]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Camaraderie, Drinking, Episode Tag, Episode: s03e10 The Return Part 1, Episode: s10e08 Memento Mori, Episode: s10e11 The Quest (2), Gen, Healing Device, Jealousy, M/M, Sexting, Vodka, lots of vodka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 07:12:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is long, has no action, and consists entirely of John's POV during the Return pt 1 when the Atlantis expedition has been recalled and he's reassigned to the SGC.<br/>It's seriously eleven thousand words of dialogue. Sorry. It was really entertaining as I was writing it.</p>
<p>I am assuming that the way the timeline works out, this is just after the mid-season hiatus of SG-1-- at the end of S10e11 The Quest 2, Daniel has been captured by the Ori and is missing. </p>
<p>If you haven't seen SG-1 S10e08 Memento Mori, Vala sort of summarizes the events, but it'd make more sense to read <a href="http://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s10/1008.shtml">a summary</a> so you know why Cam Mitchell was handcuffed to the headboard of a cheap motel bed naked and covered in Twinkie frosting. (Yes, this is canon. You know, I'd be an even bigger fan of SG-1 if they'd just had Cam lose his pants every episode.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The SGC Guide To Intergalactic Hookups: An Etiquette Manual

 

 

John wouldn’t let himself mope. Slouching around Stargate Command was really, really no way to comport himself, and it would only give his lingering detractors ammunition. He hadn’t heard from them, but he knew they were still there. 

Fortunately, a fairly early-on interview with Landry had made it plain that the SGC didn’t plan on letting John out of their clutches, so at least he wasn’t going to be back into anybody’s reach anytime soon. Of course, he wasn’t exactly suited to most of the jobs the SGC had going spare, but then, there wasn’t much that could replace Atlantis. 

He stumbled out of yet another orientation film about how they did things around here (they apologized, as the orientation materials were surely too basic, but Atlantis had developed such different protocols, it was important he get a thorough grounding in theirs. Anyway they were still fighting over what team to put him on, so it killed time. They’d sort of asked if he wanted to take a vacation or something while they sorted it out, but apart from a long weekend he spent surfing in Malibu pretty much first thing, John wasn’t really in a vacation mood.

It was about dinner time, so he made his way down to the commissary. It was tantalizingly homelike, except of course no windows, and all of the food was depressingly, boringly, blandly Earth cuisine. Military Earth cuisine, no less. 

John unenthusiastically took a sort of anemic-looking turkey sandwich, a carton of chocolate milk, an apple, and paused for too long in front of the cups of Jell-O, realizing there was no reason to take an extra. 

He didn’t take one at all, and walked away feeling like a pathetic sad-sack. He was going to have to take up drinking again. With any luck, he’d die of liver failure before the ennui claimed him. 

His self-pity spiral was interrupted by the sight of a familiar head of dark hair. “Vala?” he said. 

She looked up, startlement making her eyes very wide and blue. They were a darker color than McKay’s, and her lashes were dark, giving a completely different effect than McKay’s long pale lashes did. 

“John,” she said, shocked. She was sitting at the table with SG-1, and John noticed her uniform top had an official SG-1 shoulder patch. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Oh,” John said, “you didn’t hear?”

“Oh yes,” Carter said, looking like she had. “Colonel Sheppard, why don’t you sit down?”

“I’d love to,” he said, and Vala and Mitchell moved their chairs a little to make room. 

“Vala, the Atlantis expedition got recalled,” Carter said. 

“Kicked out, more like,” John said glumly. 

“What?” Vala looked from Carter to him, a line appearing between her eyebrows. 

“We found some Ancients,” John said, regarding his unimpressive sandwich without enthusiasm. If he didn’t start eating right and working out, he was gonna have to go down a size in uniforms, and nobody wanted that. “They were stuck in some, well, relativity or somethin’. You know. Science shit. And so we gave them a lift back to Atlantis, and they promptly took it over and told us to go home and they’d call us when they were ready to discuss an alliance. Like, thanks for repaintin’ and mowin’ the lawn and, you know, incurring massive casualties keepin’ the place safe, now scram.”

“Really,” Vala said. 

“It’s bullshit,” Mitchell said. “Pardon my language.”

John stared blankly at him, realized he’d added the last part by pure reflex, and did the mental arithmetic. “Wait, Mitchell, are you apologizing for swearing because there are _ladies present_?” 

Mitchell looked sidelong from Vala to Carter, neither of whom looked impressed. “Uh,” he said. “No. Just. In general.”

“Or did you think you’d be offending _my_ delicate sensibilities?” John asked. He liked the guy, he really did, but partly because he was such an easy target. 

“Well,” Mitchell said. “Y’know.”

“Colonel Mitchell’s manners are a continual source of surprise to me,” Teal’c intoned. 

“Wait, so you’re back on Earth for good?” Vala asked. 

“Yeah,” John said around the mouthful of sandwich that was precisely as unimpressive as it had looked.

“Oh,” Vala said. “Well. I suppose that’s a shame, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of you.” 

John grinned at her. “I was hopin’ you’d say that,” he said. “If there’s anybody around here who knows anything about fun, it’s you.”

“True,” Vala said, but her smile was a touch sad, and John realized that they all looked sort of subdued. He frowned, looking around. He didn’t know what the dynamics of a five-person team would be like, and knew Jackson had a penchant for wandering off and missing meals and the like, but he had a sudden sneaking feeling that all was not well. 

“You guys just back from a mission?” he asked. 

“Yesterday,” Carter said. 

He swallowed slowly, something in her intonation confirming it. “Something bad happened,” he said. 

Carter and Mitchell exchanged glances. Vala’s face twisted and she looked hastily away. Teal’c looked down at his tray, wordless. 

Finally Mitchell cleared his throat. “We, um, kinda lost Dr. Jackson.”

John dropped his sandwich. “Oh my God,” he said. He had lost track of Jackson’s various shenanigans but from the look of them, this wasn’t something minor. 

“He was covering our escape from the Orici,” Carter said quietly, “and was unable to follow. We haven’t been able to track him down and even if we do…” She shrugged. “The Ori are incredibly powerful and as of yet we still have no weapons that can even delay them, let alone defeat them.”

John grimaced, breathed out slowly, and nodded. “I, that’s heavy,” he said. He shook his head. “I’m, I’m so sorry. There’s— jeez, guys.”

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, “it pretty well sucks.”

“He said he’d be right behind us,” Vala said, her voice low and thick, wavering a little. 

“Aw,” John said awkwardly, distressed— he hated it when people cried, it made him go all funny inside, “I know what that’s like. It sucks. I’m so sorry.”

“We’ll get him back,” Carter said, putting her arm around Vala. “We’ve lost him before, and we’ll get him back.” 

John nodded, and flashed mentally to Ford for a moment. Again with the falling down on that job. “Well,” he said, “if there’s anything I can do to help.” He shrugged. 

“What are you up to now?” Mitchell asked, leaping at a chance to change the subject. 

John made a wry face. “Waitin’ for all this to shake out. Landry says they’re arguin’ over who gets me, but I kinda think they’re fightin’ over who _has_ to, you know?”

“What, are you nuts?” Mitchell shook his head. “If I had any room at all I’d kill to get you on my team. But I kinda have a lot of colonels already.”

“Landry asked if I’d be okay with a desk job,” John said wryly. “Wanted me to just hang around in the labs. Do paperwork. Play human lightswitch.”

“That,” Mitchell said blankly, “sounds, uh—“

“I’d last a week,” John said, “before I either went nuts or fed myself a bullet.”

Teal’c regarded him gravely. “Fed myself a bullet,” he said. “I am unfamiliar with this practice.” 

“Uh,” John said. Fair enough, Teyla probably would’ve called him on it too. He made the universal finger-gun symbol, put it into his mouth, and pretended to pull the trigger. “Sorry, my last Earthside tour was Afghanistan, there was kinda a lot of that goin’ around.”

Carter grimaced and Mitchell cringed. Teal’c regarded him steadily. “You are indicating suicide?” he asked, tilting his head. 

“I’m not really threatening to kill myself,” John said. 

“But this is common practice among the warriors of your world?” Teal’c asked. 

“No,” Mitchell said. 

“Actually,” John said. He’d been reading news, since he got back. “Apparently it’s a pretty common cause of fatalities in the service, nowadays.”

“That is unfortunate,” Teal’c said. 

“I am really crap at making decent conversation,” John said, rubbing his face. “Sorry.”

“No,” Carter said, smiling sadly, “I understand. You’ve lost your team, your project, and your home. I hardly expect you to be in very good spirits. And it’s not like we’re gonna be cheerful enough to make up for it.”

“True,” John said, and went back to picking unenthusiastically at his sad excuse for a sandwich.

 

 

 

 

 

John was standing in the middle of his semi-furnished apartment, chewing his lips and thinking woefully of his nice curtains back on Atlantis, when someone knocked on his door. Shit, the place really wasn’t visitors-ready. He had to run out to a Target or a Wal-Mart or something and remember how currency worked before he could have anybody over— he needed dishtowels, coffee cups, a coffeemaker to begin with, forget about all the other shit. He was so out of practice at living in an apartment— McMurdo had just been the BOQ, and in Afghanistan he’d had a glorified tent with a door and three other guys in it. 

Fuck, the last place he’d lived in that was his own private space before Atlantis had been the house with Nancy. And that didn’t bear thinking about. 

Shit, he probably still had some stuff in boxes there. Well, by now she’d most likely thrown it out, so that was solved.

He made it to the door, and had a moment of confusion with the doorknob, again. That was getting old. He finally got the door open, and Vala was standing there, arms crossed, eyebrow raised. 

“Doorknobs,” he said sheepishly. 

“Oh,” she said, “yes, I detest that kind of door handle. Only your planet has them. They’re awful.” She swept into the room. “Cardboard boxes,” she said. “I like the decor.”

“You hush,” John said. “It’s not exactly ready for guests.”

“I didn’t really want to hang out here anyway,” she said, then paused to look him up and down. He was covered in dust and wearing, well— he was wearing one of his Atlantis uniforms, because they were really only good for work clothes now, not uniform with anything local. “I came to ask if you wanted to go out.”

John perked up. He’d completely forgotten that that was a thing adults did on this planet. “Out like, to a bar?”

“I was thinking food,” she said. “I don’t have a car, Mitchell doesn’t trust me, and there’s a place I really want to visit.” 

“Well,” John said, “I have a car. And I mostly remember how those work.” That was another thing. He hadn’t had a car in years either. He’d left that with Nancy in the divorce. She’d made noises about giving him the money when she sold it but honestly it hadn’t been worth that much and he’d told her not to bother. The last thing he needed to worry about was money. 

What he had currently was an uninteresting rental car, but it was a car nonetheless, and had four wheels and an engine, so it wasn’t all bad. “You don’t have to freshen up if you don’t want to,” Vala said, “but…”

“Gimme like twenty minutes,” John said, rubbing the back of his hand across his chin to check the severity of stubble. Pretty severe, but for civilian purposes, most likely acceptable. He gave Vala a covert once-over as he shifted boxes and found her the TV remote (the place had come with a shitty little TV, which was all he needed anyway). She was dressed sort of pretty, in tight jeans and a pretty shirt, with her hair mostly loose but secured with a glittery clip that matched cheap but cheery earrings and necklace. Sort of standard date-night fare. He probably owned civvies that would suit… probably. 

“All right,” she said cheerfully, settling herself on the couch. “If I’d been in a hurry, I’d’ve called ahead.”

Oh shit, right, cellphones. John retrieved him from the coffee table and plugged it in to charge while he went and showered. He kept forgetting about those things. And kept absently hitting his nonexistent radio to shoot the shit with McKay. 

Who was in another state. 

He didn’t let himself jerk off to McKay in the shower; he didn’t have the time and it was pathetic anyway. It was the sole indulgence he allowed himself nowadays, when he did. And it was kind of a pathetic one, but it was what he had. 

The jeans he had were a little too new for his tastes, and made him look a bit like a dude, in the bad old-west kind of way not the cool Jeff Bridges kind of way. He rubbed wet hands down the thighs to kind of take the creases out a bit, finger-combed gel into his hair because they had it on this planet and he might as well, tried not to crinkle his nose at the profoundly alien smell of Earth deodorant that he was reduced to using now, and checked the mirror. 

“Huh,” he said, and went out into the living room. “Do I look like an Earthling?” he asked. “I don’t remember how to do it.”

Vala stood up, came very close, and stalked slowly around him, giving him a pleasantly lascivious once-over. “Mmm,” she said, quite close to the back of his neck. “Well, you’ve convinced _me_.”

John laughed, just the tiniest bit turned-on. There was basically no way he and Vala would ever go there, he was pretty sure, but she was fun because of the little _frisson_ of possibility, among other things. “Then let’s go,” he said, retrieving his keys, wallet, and cellphone. He was so out of practice carrying a wallet, he forgot for a moment which back pocket he usually put it in and put it in the wrong one. It felt so awkward he had to immediately switch, but it hardly felt less awkward. “God,” he said, “ I feel like an alien.”

“To me,” Vala purred, “you are, so…”

He laughed. “So where we headed?”

“It’s apparently a bit of a drive,” Vala said. “As I found out when I asked Mitchell to take me there and he said no. But I figured you probably didn’t have any plans?” 

“Nope,” John said. “I’m game.” 

It was about sixty miles away. He had to get out a paper map and plot a course, but he wasn’t too proud to let on to Vala that his sense of direction on the ground without a map was shit. For some reason, he didn’t feel the need to pretend with her the way he did with other people. Probably because she’d see right through it anyway. Their wavelengths were too similar, they cancelled each other out. 

“So,” John said, “dinner there. Any plans after that?”

“Maybe we can get in trouble somewhere and make Mitchell bail us out,” Vala said. “That might be fun.”

“That would be an awful lot of fun,” John said. “I haven’t been in that kind of trouble in a long time.” 

John brought the paper map and gave Vala a crash course on road trip music. The rental car was beige, basic, dumb, but hey, it had four wheels and reasonable pickup. Sixty miles should take about forty-five minutes, John figured. 

 

 

On the way, Vala explained just what had happened a few weeks before. John had heard vaguely that Vala had gone missing for a little while, but the only thing he’d really seen about it was the photo O’Neill had emailed him, without explanation, of Cam Mitchell, naked to the waist at least, in a motel bed, blankets pulled up defensively, scowling, face smeared with Twinkie frosting and left hand handcuffed to the headboard. John had obligingly printed it out and tacked it up in the locker room for the amusement of the SGC vets who knew Mitchell. He’d emailed Cam completely innocently, asking him if he’d gotten Vala to heal him yet. Cam had written back that he was kinda keeping his distance from her since last time they hung out she’d shot him and stolen his pants.

Vala told him the whole story, which it turned out wasn’t all that fun, and it came out that they were going to visit the diner where she’d worked as a waitress while amnesiac. The owner was ecstatic to see her, like she was a long-lost daughter, and the regulars all treated her kindly. It was kind of nice to see. The cop at the counter apologized for letting the fake Air Force take her, and said he’d gotten a weird vibe and felt wrong about it ever since but what else could he have done?

She forgave him magnanimously, and they sat at the diner counter and had the best meal John had had since getting back to this planet. Vala insisted on paying, but Sal insisted on paying her her last week’s wages which she’d disappeared before claiming, so it came out largely a wash. They bid their tearful goodbyes, and John felt like an intruder a little bit, but also kind of weirdly honored that he got to see this. None of her teammates had thought to drive her out here. It kind of wasn’t right. 

They went to a bar after that, where Vala flirted with everyone, started a fight, got them thrown out, and John made the executive decision that they were going to a liquor store instead, and drinking at home. He just didn’t feel like bar-fighting tonight. 

 

 

John carried the bags, gentleman-fashion, while Vala led the way. Her apartment, she had insisted, was fully furnished. This meant, John soon discovered, that she had made herself perfectly at home in a fashion that made it quite clear that she was not a native of this planet. 

“Holy shit,” he said. Where John’s BOQ apartment was all bland furnishings and white walls, Vala’s was lush. She’d shoved most of the furniture aside, covered the beige industrial carpet with layers of floor coverings— some painted heavy fabric, some woven, some low-pile figured carpets that if Earth-made would be worth thousands of dollars. The windows were hung with heavy curtains, and she had suspended curtains from the ceilings as room dividers in several places. The living room had one end slightly elevated into a platform, upon which were a number of floor cushions and a couple of low tables. There were oil lamps on the tables, hanging from the ceiling in several places. 

She looked over at him, amused but a little tense beneath that. Was she nervous at showing him her house? 

“This is awesome,” he said, and she smiled, the tension disappearing. 

“I don’t exactly get homesick,” she said, leading him into the kitchenette, “but I do find that Earth’s institutional style of decor tends to remind me mostly of unpleasant places I’ve been.” 

“Me too,” John said. “I like this.” She’d decorated in the kitchen as well, less extensively but still unmistakably. Her counters were cluttered with numerous Earth kitchen gadgets, some set up in ways that made it clear she wasn’t using them the way the instruction manual suggested. She also had some obviously non-Earth gadgets, mostly cooking pots of exotic metals, mostly hanging from a pot rack. Some of the Earth gadgets were hanging from the pot rack as well, including some that weren’t really intended to be hung up for storage.

She’d replaced some of the cabinet doors with rolling doors of decorative metal mesh. She slid one of these up and produced a pair of drinking glasses, made of glass or resin banded with metal. “I do like the way Earth does, whatchacall’em, refrigerators,” she said. “I’ve seen some really nice ones. This one is okay. I mean, obviously your culture has a lot of people living alone and nobody minding the house. That’s what Earth decor is about— it all shuts off for the long hours when nobody’s home.”

“Yeah,” John said, looking around and seeing the familiar Earth tech in a new light. 

She took the bags from John’s hand. They’d bought liquor. She pulled out the vodka, opened the bottle, and sniffed it. “Yes,” she said, “this is exactly what I was looking for.”

John perched on the stool at the end of the counter and watched as Vala assembled a number of ingredients— a lemon, something like a stick of cinnamon, a jar of… probably sugar?— a little bottle of some sort of syrup from the fridge. 

She combined the ingredients in a small pitcher that matched the drinking glasses, stirred it well with a long ornate spoon, then poured an additional measure of vodka, probably about two ounces, into one of the glasses and tossed it back. 

“Whoa,” John said. 

“The way I process alcohol,” she said, “that’s the only way I’m going to be able to be at all tipsy ever. It’ll be a brutal hangover in about an hour but I just want to be silly for at least a few minutes first. Is that too much to ask?” 

She put ice cubes in each of the glasses, then poured the mixed concoction from the pitcher into the glasses. “Here,” she said, handing the one she hadn’t drunk from to John. She clinked her glass against his. “Cheers, as they say.”

“Cheers,” John said, and took a sip. The drink was powerful, flavorful, excellent. “Wow,” he added when he could speak. 

“Good, isn’t it?” She smiled and took the pitcher in one hand, her glass in the other, and the vodka bottle under her arm as she went back to the platform end of the living room, brushing through the gauzy curtains with ease. John had to work a little harder not getting tangled. 

She took her shoes off, so he set his glass down and did the same, though it was a little tougher to get the laces of his boots unfastened. He managed to do it without spilling his drink, then joined her in the little partitioned area.

She was using a really nifty lighter to light the little oil lamp chandelier, and when she had finished, she sat, uncapped the vodka bottle, and took another swig directly from it. “So,” she said. “We didn’t get arrested tonight. Cam should be glad.”

“I texted him,” John said, “and told him we weren’t gonna need bail.” As if on cue, his phone vibrated, and he pulled it out. “He says he’s glad to cross that off his list for tonight.”

“Tell him to come over,” Vala said. “There’s a second bottle of vodka. I’ll even promise not to steal his pants.”

John laboriously keyed the letters in. He wasn’t great at typing on a real keyboard, let alone the tiny ones on these crazy cellphone computers that had popped up while he was profoundly out of touch. But he managed to type a comprehensible message, and sent it with a flourish of exasperated triumph. 

“You’d think I’d be better on Earth tech,” he said. 

“Not especially,” Vala said, her voice rich with amusement. “You’ve spent less time on this planet than I have lately.”

The thought went right through John and he slumped in his seat. “Not like I’ll ever get off it again,” he said, frankly despairing. 

“You’re on a gate team,” Vala observed.

“Nature walks with morons,” John said. 

“Aren’t you happy to be closer to your family?” Vala asked. 

John stared at her, for a moment genuinely not understanding what she meant. “I don’t have any family,” he said finally. “Not here. AR-1 was my family. And I may never see them again.”

“Really,” she said. “No family.”

John shook his head. “None who acknowledge me as such,” he said. “And so, nobody I’d care to see.”

Vala took another swig straight from the vodka bottle, a long one this time, then capped it, set it down, and went to the door. “There you are,” she said, opening the door, and to John’s mild surprise, Cam was standing right there. How had she known? John hadn’t heard anything.

“You live on-base?” John asked. 

“Next door,” Cam said. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and flip-flops, which he kicked off at the door. He also had a six-pack of beer. Cam shrugged. “Why not? Half the time we gotta go in for emergencies and shit, it’s just easier not to have to go far.”

He seemed utterly unperturbed by the decor, indicating he’d been here before. Well, it stood to reason that SG-1 hung out. AR-1 sure had. John thought a little morosely of his new SG-4, where he’d replaced a dead man. They were all military, nice enough but not exactly on his wavelength, and a bit intimidated by him. None of them laughed at his jokes except nervously and too late. The idea of having a beer with any of them, hanging out with them outside of work, kind of made John feel icky. 

Vala went to the kitchen and came back with a glass. She held up the pitcher, and Cam made a face. “Vala, I dunno if I trust your concoctions anymore.”

John gave Cam a fake-alarmed look over the edge of his glass. “Oh,” Cam said, “you’re screwed. She makes those so damn strong.”

“We’ll find out,” John said, and downed the rest of his glass, feeling a bit reckless. He could walk home from here. And if he drank enough maybe he wouldn’t wake up screaming like he had every night so far. 

Cam shook his head. “You’re a braver man than I, or maybe just more foolish,” he said. “Wanna beer?”

“Sure,” John said, and accepted one. The cap wasn’t twist-off; he had his keys out (it felt weird to carry keys) and had popped the top off before Cam had his out to offer. 

“You’re not out of practice at all,” Cam said. 

“Never,” John said. He toasted with the bottle. Vala took a beer as well, even though she hadn’t finished her drink, and he took the cap off for her. 

Cam took up a spot by one of the tables, sprawling comfortably on the floor next to John. “So where’d you kids go?”

“The diner where Val used to work,” John said. “She told me the story behind that crazy photo of you in your skivvies.”

“I can’t believe they took a picture,” Cam said. “Oh my God. I wouldn’t do that to my teammates, why do they do that to me?”

“Burden of command,” John said, a little glumly. “You should see the pictures of me Rodney has on his computer.” 

“Anything good?” Cam asked, a little eagerly. 

John rolled his eyes. “We lose our pants out in Pegasus all the time,” he said. Rodney had a few less innocent pictures of John. There was one memorable occasion where an offworld mission’s DV camera had wound up filming John sucking Rodney’s cock. That had taken some editing prior to the mission report, for sure. John would’ve made him delete it except that it was so goddamn hot, Rodney holding the camera unsteadily as he came all over John’s face, and Rodney did sometimes have reasonable computer security. And if John ever got kicked out of the Air Force he was personally emailing that one to a couple of higher-ups as a fuck-you parting shot; you could see his uniform insignia in the money shot. “Except it’s usually for rituals and shit. For literally an entire year, three of Rodney’s laptops had a desktop wallpaper of my ass in underpants with stars on ‘em. I don’t know why he thought that was so funny.” 

“You have underpants with stars on ‘em?” Cam asked. 

“Well, yeah,” John admitted. “Hey. Rodney’s got the most ridiculous collection of novelty-print boxers in the entire Pegasus galaxy, he’s got no right to judge me. And yet. He does.” 

“And you’re intimately familiar with the underpants of your teammates,” Cam said. 

John looked innocent. “Isn’t that part of bein’ a ‘gate team? What do you guys do for bonding activities?”

Cam laughed, and Vala looked intrigued. “I’ll suggest it to Carter,” she said. 

“Huh,” John said, “maybe that’s why SG-4 all looked so surprised when I gave them the pep talk on team orgy etiquette.” 

“Oh man,” Cam said, laughing harder. “I’m just imagining— oh man, I gotta wash out my brain, I can’t think about any of those guys naked.”

“They’re perfectly reasonable specimens of Air Force masculinity,” John said, but took a glum swig of his beer. “They’re just not my team,” he added quietly in a moment, and oh, yeah, the alcohol had hit him. 

Cam sat up and thumped him comfortingly on the shoulder. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s tough.”

“I been reassigned before,” John said bleakly. “I had to leave places I liked before. I’ve lost teams before— hell, usually it was ‘cuz they were dead, so I should probably be glad I didn’t have to deal with that, at least.”

“Naw,” Cam said, “you got a raw deal, and leadin’ SG-4 isn’t exactly gonna make up for it.”

John shook his head. His predecessor had been a captain. This was a pretty severe demotion, no matter what anyone said. But at least he wasn’t out of the SGC entirely, and back at the tender mercy of people like Anson, his old CO who’d promised him a court-martial one way or another. 

“Sorry,” he said, realizing he’d killed the conversation. “I didn’t figure I’d be a maudlin drunk tonight but I can’t muster as much cheer as I figured I would.”

“Look at it this way,” Cam said, “at least you don’t have to put up with McKay anymore.”

“I would take a team composed entirely of McKay clones,” John said, “over what I have now.” And of course, he was drunk enough that his mind went there, imagining not one, not two, but three Rodneys. He squashed it before his body could react. 

“At least McKay has a nice arse,” Vala said. “Not a one of your new guys does.”

“Aw,” Cam said, disgusted, “that’s how you pick teammates, huh?”

“It’s not a bad method of selection,” John said contemplatively. He thought it over. “Shit, I was the weak link on AR-1. Everyone on that team had a nicer ass than me.”

Cam stared at him. “You think McKay has a nice ass?”

John returned his stare. “Are you _blind_?”

“I don’t find guys’ asses hot,” Cam said, grimacing. 

John shrugged, feeling reckless. Fuck it, what did he have to lose? “Doesn’t mean they aren’t,” he said. “And I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter how straight you are, there is no part of Ronon Dex that is not hot.” 

Cam tilted his head. “All right,” he said, “you have a point. But I am not going to concede on the point of McKay’s ass.”

“That’s because you’ve never looked,” Vala said, “not because it’s not true.”

“All right,” Cam said, “all right, I give. Fine. I’m blind. Can we talk about somethin’ besides guys’ asses?”

“Yours isn’t that bad,” Vala said conspiratorially to John. “It’s nicer than Cam’s.” 

“I doubt that,” John said. “Not that I’ve particularly checked yours out, Cam, but I really don’t have a whole lot goin’ on back there.”

“The uniforms you guys wear don’t really do most of you any good,” Vala commented. “Those jeans, though, John— those are all right.”

“Seriously,” Cam said. “Can we not talk about asses?”

“You might be outvoted,” Vala said. 

John took a long pull from his beer bottle. “Well, so far it’s either that or how depressing a drunk I am,” he said. 

“Oh,” Vala said, “let’s play a game.”

“Aw fuck,” Cam said. 

“What kind of game?” John asked. 

“A drinking game,” she said, and grinned viciously. 

“I know,” John said. “Daddy Issues Bingo. I’m undefeated.” 

Cam stared blankly at him as he began to explain the rules. 

 

 

“I have a new wager,” John said. “Vala, will you take this wager?”

“What’s the wager?” she asked. She was leaning against him, almost as though he were one of the pillows in the pile she was reclining on. 

“I’m wagering Cam will puke within half an hour,” John said. “What odds would you give me on that?”

Vala tilted her head, considering Cam, who was tilting a bit sideways and had his eyes not quite open. He’d fared rather poorly at one of the games they’d tried, and at this point had consumed enough alcohol to make walking a dicey proposition.

“I don’t know that I’d take odds, per se,” she said, “but I will point out that there’s a basin under that table and if he starts to go, you’re closer and I expect you to catch him. Some of these rugs were quite a hassle to get through your gate.”

“I got the spins,” Cam said. “Why did I let you do this to me?”

John was feeling charitable, and had already gotten him a glass of water. It probably wouldn’t do much good, but Cam was a grown man and really should have known what he was getting into. “Don’t close your eyes,” he said.

“I’m not,” Cam said. “Uggghhh.”

Vala laughed, and settled herself more comfortably along John’s side. He was drunk enough not to mind it at all. Especially when she snaked her arm up to put her fingers into his hair. “What do you put in here?” she asked. 

“Usually nothin’,” John said. 

“No way,” Cam said, opening both eyes. 

“I have some gel in it tonight,” John said. “I kind of lost my mind in the PX drugstore because I hadn’t actually spent Earth money in so long, I think I bought one of everything in the store. Including hair gel because it was so long since I’d seen any.”

“I figured they were pretty good at resupplyin’ you guys on the Daedalus now,” Cam said. 

“Yeah, essentials,” John said. “Not hair product.” Vala worked her fingers down through his hair to his scalp, and he made a heartfelt noise of pleasure and tilted his head so she could reach better.

“It’s very soft,” she said. “I really had thought it would be spiky.”

“No way,” Cam said again, and lurched upright, approaching rather alarmingly. John flinched back, but held still with Vala’s hand curled loosely around the back of his neck as Cam reached out and tousled his hair. “Holy shit. I figured you had that shit hairsprayed or somethin’.”

“No,” John said, “it just kinda does th— hey, you think I’m the kind of person who has forty minutes to do his hair in the mornings? In a fuckin’ warzone?”

“I dunno,” Cam said, giving his hair one last vigorous scritch before slumping back down to the floor. “I never really thought about, y’know, the logistics.”

“Speaks volumes of your resume,” John said dryly, tilting his head to try to get Vala to go back to petting him. He was sort of shameless about it, he knew, if he ever unbent far enough to let someone touch his hair in the first place. It was a disaster now, and the worse for having had product in it to begin with, so it wasn’t like he had anything to save himself for. 

Vala took the hint, and slid her hand back up into his hair, moving her fingers firmly and knowledgeably across his scalp. John was drunk enough that he let himself make pleased little noises, eyes sinking closed. 

“It’s not like I never told him how I felt,” Vala said quietly, after a long moment of companionable almost-silence broken only by John’s shameless grunting. “I mean, never in so many words, but enough that it was pretty clear that he wasn’t exactly returning the feeling.”

Nobody said anything for a moment, but finally John peeled his eyes open and said, “Well, at least you know.”

“I suppose,” she said, but it was clear she wasn’t exactly comforted. 

“Hey,” John said. “It’s not like he didn’t care at all.”

“No,” she said. She gave his head one last good rub, then sat back to reach for her glass. He sighed, subsiding further into the pillows. “Have you ever,” she asked John quietly, “… you know. Cared a lot for someone who didn’t return the sentiment.”

“Yeah,” John said before he could think better of it. He groped for his glass, found it, took a long swallow. It was water, by now, but probably too little too late when it came to hangover prevention. “Sometimes,” he added finally, “I think pretty much all my relationships have been like that.”

“Not you,” Cam said, surprised, and John wouldn’t have thought he was sober enough to participate in a conversation, but he sounded reasonably coherent. 

“Oh,” John said, “especially me. How about you?”

Cam fidgeted. “I think I’ve kind of gone the other way, a bit,” he said. “And it’s not like— that’s the thing, it’s not like that’s really any easier. Because yeah, you feel a bit pathetic if you realize you’re mooning after someone who really doesn’t care for you, but it’s, I mean— well, it really sucks to realize that this person you think is a fine person but don’t particularly have any, y’know, like _pants_ -feelings for, really wants you, and you just— it’s not there. And it sucks because you feel like just this giant conceited asshole. Like, ungrateful, or somethin’.”

“I have had admirers,” Vala conceded. “But, it’s different, I think, because most of them really just wanted to have me, kind of as a… a thing, a possession.”

“I get that sometimes,” John said. “People want me like a feather in their cap or something. But they don’t really want me, they just want to have scored with me, and tell other people about it later.”

“Well,” Cam said. “I can honestly say that’s never happened to me.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Vala said. “I’m talking about when you really care for someone.”

“So was I,” John said. He shook his head. “And you’re with somebody and you think it’s really— it’s really _deep_ , they’re so into you and you’re so totally smitten with them, and you kinda gradually realize all they ever talk about is how hot you are, and finally you realize that they’re really just in this for the sex.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Cam said. 

Both John and Vala looked at him, and his expression slowly shifted to one of discomfort. “Okay,” he said finally, “I guess that would be kinda bad.”

“I suppose I’m glad that hasn’t happened,” Vala said. “Though I like to think the object of my affections would be, I don’t know, a better person than that?” As she said it she made a face like she didn’t like the phrase, wrinkling her nose. 

John shook his head. “The most recent one has been a pretty decent person about it,” he said. Great, now began the pronouns dance. “It— it’s not their fault, y’know? And they’ve been really good about dealing with all the other shit, and all. But at its heart this is all… I’m pretty sure this is mostly about sex, for them.”

“Pretty sure,” Vala said. “Have you not discussed it?”

“What’s to talk about?” John asked. “Jesus, talk about an awkward conversation. Hey, so um, I’m sort of in tragic epic hopeless love with you, and I know it’s, well, sorta pathetic so if all I can get from you is sincere but shallow-minded sex I’ll take it, but you should know I think about you all the time and watch you in your sleep.”

Cam snorted and laughed, which was what John had been going for, but Vala just reached over and took his hand. “You don’t have to say it like that,” she said. “You could just make sure they know that you’re interested in taking the relationship further. _Do_ they know that?”

John considered it. “Well,” he said, then hesitated. “I’ve, um, kind of made a point of not, um. Not makin’ a big deal about it.”

“So how do you know how deep or shallow this person’s feelings are for you?” Vala asked. “What if they’re just trying to protect themselves because they don’t know whether you truly care for them or not?”

“Oh,” John said, “they know.”

“In words,” Vala said. “Words, John.”

The words _you don’t give me a whole lot to go on_ suddenly smacked into John’s brain, and he said, “Um.”

“You Earthers,” she said, suddenly animatedly exasperated, “all of you, God, you have this incredibly stupid idea that people are just going to pick up on what you _mean_ by things. And at first I thought it was just that I wasn’t from this planet and I was missing out on the references or something, but as I’ve been here longer I’ve realized no, it’s not just me, nobody fucking understands what anybody’s talking about. If you haven’t said it in so many words, you haven’t fucking _said it_ , John.”

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then Cam said, “You’re really smart, Vala,” like he was surprised or something.

“Thank you,” she said, beaming at him for a moment before going back to her stormy-faced contemplation of John. “So? What have you said, _in words_ , to this person?”

John screwed up his face. “Stuff,” he said, squirming uncomfortably. 

“Is this person nearby?” Vala asked. 

John’s face fell. “No,” he said. “When we got sent back to Earth—” He swallowed the next word, avoiding an incriminating pronoun just in time. “I told my friends where I was getting stationed, and instead of taking the position they were offered nearby, they decided to take one kinda far away.” He squirmed lower in the cushions, a pang in his gut echoing the hurt he’d felt then. They’d offered Rodney a project here, a good project, and he’d outright jumped at the chance to get away. Sure, he still had friends up in Nevada, but John hadn’t even been offered a choice of positions, for him it was Colorado or he could take his chances with total reassignment.

Not that he’d’ve gone to Area 51 anyway. That would’ve been 100% human-lightswitch work with no chance to go offworld or fly anything. Not even a whopping dose of Rodney would’ve made that endurable. 

“Oh,” Cam said, “someone from Atlantis.” He sounded surprised. And way too interested. This was going to get awkward.

“I haven’t set foot on Earth in almost two years,” John pointed out. “Hookin’ up with somebody here’d be a neat trick over that kinda distance.”

“True,” Cam said. “Dunno why I’m surprised.”

“Do you talk to them still?” Vala asked. 

John shrugged. “Email,” he said. 

“Make some kinda grand gesture,” Cam said. “Show up with roses or somethin’.”

John gave him a dirty look. “That always works,” he said. “You’re assuming I want this to go on. Maybe spending some time apart would be good for me. Atlantis was like a fishbowl, everybody up in everyone else’s business, no chance for any kinda distance to think stuff over, livin’ in everybody’s back pockets all the time. Maybe we can both get a little perspective on stuff. And then if we still wanna keep at this, we can do it a little more deliberately.”

“That’s an approach,” Vala said dubiously, taking another drink. The first vodka bottle was gone, with their assistance, and she was working her way steadily through the second. 

“It’s what I’ve got, all right?” John re-settled himself testily. 

“Naw,” Cam said, “he’s right, though. The distance is good. ‘Cuz this way it can’t just be convenient sex. If you both want it enough to travel for it, then that means it’s worth pursuing. But if uh— they,” shit, he’d picked up on the pronoun weirdness, John should’ve just lied, “can’t be bothered with long-distance, then it’s a good sign to cut your losses.”

“Yeah,” John said, fidgeting nervously with his cup. Cam wasn’t likely to freak out or tell anybody. Was he? Shit, even if he did, John wasn’t in a politically-sensitive position anymore. It probably didn’t matter. Cam was looking at him, hard to read in the flickering lamplight. 

“It’s also probably a lot less risky, career-wise, if you can get off-base once in a while,” Cam added quietly, getting it in one.

“Yeah,” John said, staring fiercely at his cup. 

“Aw,” Cam said, “dude, that makes it so much more complicated. That _sucks_.”

“What does?” Vala asked, frowning. She looked from one of them to the other. “What?”

“It’s a dude,” Cam said, when it became clear that John couldn’t get his mouth to open. “His, his person. It’s a guy.”

Vala shook her head, still not comprehending. John managed to peel his eyes up to glance at Cam, whose face was set in grim— sympathy, that was sympathy. “Yeah,” he said hoarsely. 

“Vala,” Cam said, “there are— you’re gonna think we’re savages. There are still regulations that are enforced. US military personnel can’t have relationships with members of the same sex.”

“I got dispensation to pretty much ignore it,” John said, “and I do, for my staff, but. I’m in a politically sensitive position. I can’t— do that.”

Cam shook his head slowly. “It’s such a dumb policy,” he said. “Cuz we have to swear all these oaths and stuff, to be officers, and it’s this big deal and we give our word to be truthful and honorable and shit, and then the official policy is that if we’re inclined a particular way we can’t tell anybody about our most important relationships.”

“That is… you people _are_ savages,” Vala said, frowning even more deeply. 

“I know,” Cam said. He reached over and poked John’s knee. “I’m sorry, man. I had no idea.” 

“You weren’t supposed to,” John said, a little bleakly. 

“Well,” Cam said, a little more brightly, “now you’re really not anywhere anybody’s gonna care. And even if they did, it’s a whole lot easier to deal with it here. I know how it is when you want to keep your business to yourself in a small closed community. It’s a lot easier around here.”

“There you go,” John said, still glum and unmoving. “The bright side of my exile. Except the part where he transferred out.”

“And here I thought you were bein’ cagey because of fraternization,” Cam said. “Like you’d be caught dead dating some coed baby lieutenant.”

“I got better discipline than that,” John said, annoyed. “I’d never screw around with somebody under my command. _Those_ rules are for a reason.” 

“I really, really never would’ve guessed you were gay,” Cam said. 

“Thanks, I guess,” John said. “Look, it’s— I like chicks too, it’s not like _that_.”

“Oh,” Cam said, “I didn’t mean— I don’t mean anything by it. I just, I don’t know, I didn’t think— I mean, a lot of us at the SGC, a lot of the staff, we’re kinda oddballs and stuff, there wind up bein’ a lot of kinda… DADT refugees. That’s all. So I mean, I know a lot of guys in the closet. And I never got that vibe. And I’m, I’m just gonna shut up now.”

“We _did_ just spend like twenty minutes discussing the relative merits of various dudes’ asses,” John commented, relaxing enough to be amused. Awkwardness was a lot more soothing than smooth reassurances. And what that said about his social set, he didn’t care to examine. 

“So your relationship had to be a secret,” Vala said, giving him a soft-eyed look.

“Yeah,” John said. 

“I guess I understand why you wouldn’t feel you could speak your mind, then,” she said. “But that’s all the more reason to do so now.”

“How’d we get on this topic?” John groused. He was feeling decidedly uncomfortable now. Coming out to Cam was weird and he didn’t know how he felt about that yet, but it was making him itchy. 

“Me,” Vala said, and looked sad again. 

“Aw,” John said, repentant, “I’m sorry, I really— aw. See, my problems are nothin’. Why are we talkin’ about me?”

“Because your problem is much more interesting than mine,” Vala said, “and there’s something that can be done about your problem, but no help for mine. So go on and tell him, John.”

“He knows,” John said. 

Vala held up his phone, which he had absolutely not noticed her removing from his pocket, and opened it to look through it. “Where is he?” she asked. “I’ll call him now.”

“No,” John said, “Jesus, give that back.”

“Not under b for boyfriend,” she said. “Give me a hint.”

“No,” John said. “God. No. I’m not talkin’ about this.”

“Fine,” she said, and pouted, handing him back his phone. He was going to stow it in his farthest pocket, but thought better of it; if she wanted it, she’d just pickpocket him anyway, so he tossed it onto the table. “You have to, though,” she said. “Just, humor me, and tell him.”

“Plausible deniability,” Cam said. “Do somethin’ really goofy, like askin’ him to go steady or somethin’, and if he’s like _what no_ , you can kinda brush it off. Y’know? Like, the freedom of bein’ on Earth went to your head.” 

“He knows,” John said again. “Jesus. How many times do I have to say it?”

“In so many words,” Vala said. 

“Oh my God,” John said. “Cam, let’s talk about your love life.”

“Well,” Cam said, “that was a short conversation.”

“Aw c’mon,” John said. “We’ve dissected mine down to the bones. C’mon, give.”

“I did,” Cam said. “That’s it.”

John sat up on his elbow. “No,” he said. Cam rolled his eyes. “No!” he repeated. “Aw c’mon, you’re the head of SG-1. That has to get you _insanely_ laid.”

“Nobody with clearance to know about that cares,” Cam said. “And nobody without clearance is going to be impressed by something they don’t know about. Y’dig?”

John considered it. “Y’know,” he said, “bein’ an Air Force pilot never got me laid either.” 

“Right?” Cam shook his head. “The movies got it all wrong.”

“My wife almost wouldn’t date me when she found out,” John said, tipping his head back to finish the last of the water in his glass. When he tipped his head back down, both Vala and Cam were staring at him. “What?” He mentally rewound. “Well, she’s my _ex_ -wife now.”

“You were married?” Cam asked. 

John fidgeted uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he said. 

“To a woman,” Cam said. 

“Yeah,” John said. “I told you, it’s not like that, I like chicks sometimes. I— I’m picky, okay? I don’t care what’s in their pants, I care who they are.”

“I am right there with you,” Vala said. 

“Nuh-uh,” Cam said. “You’re not gonna gang up on me and get me to open my mind. I am not into dudes and that’s that.”

John looked him up and down, rolling over to lounge lasciviously against the pillows. “No offense,” he said, “but you’re not my type.” 

“I dunno if I should be insulted,” Cam said. 

“Well,” John said. “I _am_ very picky.”

Both Cam and Vala were looking at him, and he stared back, confused; their expressions weren’t what he expected at all. “What?” he said finally. 

“Aren’t you gonna get that?” Cam asked, gesturing at the table. 

John looked down. His phone was facedown. He didn’t hear anything. But he picked it up, and the screen was lit up. “Oh,” he said. “It’s not— is it ringing?” But now that he was holding it he could hear it. “I must have the volume down.” It was Rodney. “Oh. Sorry, hang on.”

He picked up. “This is Sheppard,” he said, and managed to get to his feet and wander out into the main room. 

“I know,” Rodney said, “that’s the number I dialed.”

“Someone else might answer my phone,” John said, amused. 

“Oh, that’s very likely, yes,” Rodney said. “Log on to your computer, I have a thing I want to send you.”

“I’m not at home,” John said. 

“What? Why not?” John glanced at his watch as Rodney spoke. “It’s the middle of the night!”

“It’s 11 pm on a Friday,” John said. “That’s not the middle of the night.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re out,” Rodney said suspiciously. 

Cam went past, heading for the bathroom. John wandered into the kitchen and got himself another glass of water. “I’m hangin’ out with coworkers,” he said. 

“I thought you hated your team,” Rodney said. 

“I don’t hate anybody,” John answered. “But no, I’m not hangin’ out with my team. I meant, more generally, coworkers.”

“Like who?” Rodney asked, sounding genuinely baffled. 

“SG-1,” John said. He drank down the whole glass of water. Hangovers were no joke at this age. 

“What’s Carter wearing?” Rodney asked, eager and, more likely than not, really not kidding, and John swallowed hard against the unhappy stab in his gut.

“She’s not here,” John said. He was drunk enough that he continued, “What, you’ll ask what she’s wearin’, and not me?”

“Oh,” Rodney said. “Oh! What are _you_ wearing?”

“I’m not playin’ second fiddle,” John said. “Call her up and try to have phone sex with _her_ and see how that goes.”

“Maybe I will,” Rodney said, irritated. 

“Ah,” John said, refilling the glass one more time, “but here’s the thing, I bet she’s wearin’ more underwear than me.” 

“What?” Rodney squawked. 

“You heard me,” John said sweetly. “And I’m drunk as hell, too, you know how friendly I can get when I’m drunk as hell.”

“Yes,” Rodney said, and there was a distinct note of yearning in his voice. “Yes, I do.”

“But you have fun tryin’ your luck with her,” John said. “I got like half a bottle of vodka to get through. I’ll shoot you an email tomorrow once the hangover subsides.”

“No no no,” Rodney said, “wait—“

“You know, I pretty much never wear underpants with jeans,” John said thoughtfully. “Definitely not with tight jeans like these. Don’t like the way they tend to ride up. Anyway. Catch ya later.” He hung up and ambled unhurriedly back into the living room. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“Did you really not hear that phone ringing?” Vala asked. 

John climbed back into his former position, and tossed the phone back onto the table. “No,” he said. 

Cam climbed back in to resume his position as well, with a refilled water glass. “It wasn’t that quiet,” he said. “Both of us heard it.”

John shook his head. “I didn’t hear it at all,” he said. He shrugged. “I’ve been havin’ problems with my ears. I got caught a little too close to some C-4 not all that long ago, they’ve been ringin’ a lot ever since.”

“Sucks,” Cam said. 

“Yeah,” John said. “For a while I thought it was just that suddenly a lot of people were sneakin’ up on me, but I’m startin’ to suspect I’ve actually got some hearing loss.”

“I can probably fix that,” Vala said, rolling her eyes. 

John turned to look at her. “Oh yeah,” he said. “I forgot.” 

She unfolded her long limbs from her sprawl on the cushions and got to her feet. “Would you like me to?” she asked. 

“Yes,” John said, “please, if you would.”

“Then I will,” she said, and moved smoothly out of the room. Far more smoothly than a woman who’d pretty much had an entire handle of vodka on her own should have been able to. John wondered idly if her hangover had started yet. 

“Fix that,” Cam said, blinking bemusedly at the still-moving curtain Vala had passed through. 

“Remember how I emailed you about that?” John asked. 

Vala came back with the device on her hand, and knelt next to John. “Face me,” she said. 

“Yes ma’am,” John said, and she put her free hand on his jaw, tilting his head to expose one ear. 

Her face was illuminated in the red glow, serene and thoughtful. There was a strange fizzing sensation, soundless and hot, in John’s ear. “Mm,” she said. “It’s giving me a reading that there’s definitely some damage. Hold still.”

John settled himself obediently, closing his eyes against the strange sensation. “What the hell are you doin’?” Cam asked. 

Vala didn’t answer, instead tilting his head the other way and bringing the device to bear on his other ear. It tingled there too, intense and hot. “This one’s worse,” she said, and frowned a moment, then smiled. “There.” She sat back, and John shook his head and yawned to pop his ears, which felt strangely pressurized. It felt like he’d been wearing hearing protection and had just taken it off. 

“Wow,” John said. “Okay. That’s— wow.”

“It was significant,” she said. “Is anything else bugging you, while I have it out? Are your knees holding up?”

“They’re fine,” John said. “And my shoulder’s doin’ really great.”

“What did you do?” Cam asked. 

John looked over. “I told you,” he said. “She can fix pretty much anything that’s broken.”

“Even old damage?” Cam asked. 

“This isn’t news,” John said. 

“I told you I could do it,” Vala said. “I told you I would, Cam. Now that you’ve seen it, are you interested?”

“How does it work?” he asked, but the way he was sitting forward, he obviously did want it. 

Vala shrugged. “Qetesh knew,” she said. “I don’t really care to plumb the depths of her memories to try to find out, though. I just know how to make it work.”

John’s phone buzzed, and he picked it up and sat back, sort of checking out of the conversation. Cam had come closer, and now Vala was using the device on one of his thumbs, which John could see had been broken and healed. 

Rodney had texted him a couple of times. “Oh my god and you’re so bendy when you’re drunk,” the first one said. “How could you hang up on a bombshell like that?” said the second. “Now I’m horny. Damn it,” said the third. 

John set the phone back down, smiling smugly to himself. Even if maybe it was just about sex, at least he could wind Rodney up good about it. 

Meanwhile, Cam was making a noise that John totally recognized; something broken inside his body was melting and reshaping itself. Vala was looking at him serenely, holding the device very steadily. 

She pulled her hand away, and Cam flexed his hand experimentally. “Oh my God,” he said. “It’s— it’s like it was never broken.”

“It doesn’t do much for scars,” she said. “Sometimes I can get it to, but it seems most useful for me to concentrate on structural issues.”

“Yeah,” Cam said. “Holy— holy shit, Vala.” He was pressing the tips of each finger in turn against the pad of his thumb, which John took to indicate that he’d had nerve damage there before. 

“Mm,” Vala said, but she looked a little pale. 

“Are you okay?” John asked. 

“Oh,” she said, “it kind of, it burned through the alcohol. I’m getting the whole hangover at once, now.”

John handed her his glass of water. “Drink that down, I’ll get you some aspirin.”

“I’m all right,” she said. 

“I’ll get you some anyway,” he said, and went into her bathroom. The medicine cabinet was full of strange bottles and jars, precious little he recognized. At length he decided she didn’t have any aspirin, so he went back out to the living room, noticed that she had Cam lying on the floor and was determinedly working on his back, and decided he’d better go get some aspirin. 

“I’ll be right back,” he said, and shoved his feet into his boots. 

His apartment was across the street. He was gone for probably ten minutes, all told, raiding his own freshly-stocked medicine cabinet, and when he got back, Cam and Vala were both lying on the floor on opposite sides of the coffee table. John stepped out of his untied boots as he shut the door, and Cam sat up, looking guilty, and put John’s phone back onto the table. 

“What—” John said flatly, but he didn’t need to ask. Vala, peaked and pale, also looked a little guilty. “That’s _kind of_ an invasion of privacy,” he said, an icky sick feeling collecting in his stomach. 

“I,” Cam said, “sort of didn’t expect to find anything.” 

John closed his eyes briefly. “But you did.”

“McKay,” Cam said. “Really?”

John breathed in slowly, breathed out, walked over and held out his hand. “Give,” he said. 

Cam sheepishly handed him his phone. He looked at it. The text messaging window was open. Rodney had sent two more texts. “Come on,” said the fourth text, “at least a dick pic?” John closed his eyes, steeled himself, read the fifth one. “You know how I feel about how your ass looks in jeans.”

“What,” John said tightly, “were you doing a dramatic reading?”

“I thought it was cute,” Vala offered apologetically. 

John put the phone into his pocket, leaned forward and put the bottle of aspirin on the table. “There,” he said. “Hope that helps. Thanks, it’s been a slice.”

“Wait,” Cam said, getting to his feet with a strangely shaky sort of nimbleness. Well, he’d had some pretty epic damage in there. “John, wait, I’m really sorry. I didn’t—“ 

“It’s okay,” John said woodenly, shoving his feet back into his boots. He felt sick. Well, it hadn’t been a great idea to combine vodka and beer. And, you know, a stabbing sense of personal betrayal. But what did he expect? They weren't his team. 

“No,” Cam said, catching his arm, turning him. He was painfully sincere. “I wasn’t makin’ fun of ya. We weren’t. I just— it made a noise, I picked it up to see what the noise was.” 

“I’m sorry—" Vala said abruptly, and bolted for the bathroom. John paused, and exchanged grimaces with Cam.

“I shouldn’t’ve asked her to do my ribs,” Cam said, guilty. “It’s not like they were hurtin’ me so bad I couldn’t let it go another couple days. I mean, I’ve been livin’ with it for years.”

John really wanted to just go, but he could hear Vala throwing up, and he felt kind of bad about that. He bit his lips. His phone beeped again, his text notification.

“I really am sorry,” Cam said. “And I wasn’t laughin’ at ya. I just— I really didn’t expect— I can’t envision Mc _Kay_ —“ He paused, his eyes widened, and he hastily continued, “but that’s not the point. The point is, I really didn’t mean to read anything sensitive on your phone. I wasn’t tryin’ to, to be a jerk about it.”

John stared at him. In the background, Vala coughed, made a distressed little moaning noise, and flushed the toilet. Both men grimaced again. 

“I’m not out to _anybody_ ,” John said quietly. “My entire existence is top secret but that one thing is the single most zealously protected thing in my life.” 

“I totally understand,” Cam said. “I don’t doubt that at all. I get what a big deal it is that you trusted us enough to talk about it at all. I really do.”

John’s phone beeped again. Rodney was still texting him. _Jesus._ Vala poked her head out of the bathroom. “I’m almost done here,” she said weakly. “Cam, please don’t let John go.” She shuddered, and pulled the door back shut behind her. 

John’s shoulders came down a little bit and he shook his head. He just didn’t have it in him to get mad and pull away and wrap himself up in his own misery again. He was so goddamned tired of being so goddamned lonely. 

“Man,” Cam said, “I wouldn’t hurt you, I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you. You know I respect you professionally. And I respect you personally. I’m not even bullshitting you.”

John’s phone beeped one more time and he yanked it out of his pocket. “Jesus Christ,” he said, exasperated. 

“Are you mad at me?” Rodney’s sixth text message said. “I mean, you usually are about something, but for real this time?” read the seventh. And the eighth, which had just arrived, said, “Are you mad that I asked about Carter? I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Some1 just picked up my phone & read these msgs,” John typed back laboriously, “so im dealing w that at moment thx.”  

“He’s got a bee in his bonnet, huh,” Cam offered cautiously.

“I told him I was hangin’ out with SG-1 and he instantly asked what Carter was wearing,” John said, letting his brittleness and irritation show on his face. “I’m not really gay except for him, but I’ve had my career on the line for the two years or so we’ve been doin’ this, and I’m not even first on his list. Maybe I’m a little defensive about this, Cam, maybe I’m not real pumped about not only comin’ out but having the pathetically lopsided nature of this whole shebang laid out like a terrain map. Can you blame me?”

“Not one bit,” Cam said. “You know, I still have that fake lemon you gave me.”

“I don’t want to talk about that fake lemon,” John said. Vala’s bathroom was emitting the distinctive sound of tooth-brushing. Brushing teeth was a thing that transcended galaxies, John had discovered; almost every alien civilization of humanoids worth talking to had toothbrushes of some sort.

Cam sucked in his breath. “Oh my god,” he said, “the fake lemon was about Carter too.”

“Bingo,” John said. He pulled his feet out of his boots and went back and sat on the edge of the living room platform. “You now know more about my romantic relationships than any other single living human, including the other person involved in them.”

Vala came out of her bathroom, clutching a large cup of water and looking wan. “Sheppard told McKay he was drinkin’ with SG1 and McKay’s first reaction was to ask what Carter’s wearin’,” Cam said to her, indignant. 

“Oh my god,” Vala said. “What an arsehole.” She made her way across the living room and climbed back into her former spot, snagging the bottle of aspirin on her way by. “Thanks for this,” she said. “John, we weren’t laughing at you.”

“I get it,” John said wearily, reading the most recent text message, which said “Oh god, who is it, I will hack files and have them discredited.”

Vala fished out three aspirin and downed them. John thought of pointing out the recommended dosage, but decided that a woman who could process a liter and a half of vodka in a couple of hours could probably handle whatever quantity of aspirin she cared to. “It seems obvious,” she said, “that he must not know what he means to you, and also that he is an arsehole.”

“Him being an asshole kind of comes with the territory,” John said. “I knew that goin’ in. Don’t get mad at him on my behalf. I’m the one that’s made this into a big deal.”

“Naw,” Cam said, “I don’t care what the arrangement you got is, you don’t perv over a different person to or even in front of the one you’re actually sleepin’ with, unless they’re into it too. It’d be one thing if he was tryin’ for a threesome or somethin’.”

John tilted his head, conceding the point. “True,” he said. “He’s not. She overwrites me entirely.”

“Then he’s over the line,” Vala said. “I agree with Cam on that one, that’s not just Earth manners.”

For some reason that made John feel better. “Hm,” he said, and hunt-and-pecked a reply to Rodney. “No its cool but weve all agreed its rly fckng rude 2 ask the guy yr banging 2 report attire of woman u want 2 bang.” He read that aloud to the others as he sent it. 

“We’re like the next generation of Emily Post over here,” Cam said. “Gonna write a book. SG-1’s Guide To Intergalactic Hookups.”

“Emily Post wrote a manual on proper etiquette,” John said to Vala.

“Oh,” Vala said, “I know an awful lot about manners, I bet I could make some good contributions.”

“Start the manuscript,” John said. “We’ll wait for declassification and then that’ll fund our retirement. And once I’m retired I can openly write the gay part of it. Right? Isn’t that true?”

“I think so,” Cam said. “Hell, that shouldn’t affect your pension. We’ll have to make sure. Well, let’s hope by then the rule’s changed anyway.”

“I’m not holdin’ my breath,” John said. His phone beeped.

“I’m sorry,” Rodney wrote. “I really didn’t mean it like that.”

“Not a lot of ways u cld have meant it,” John wrote back, “but thats cool ill talk to u 2mrw.” He put his phone away, rubbed his face.

Vala drank the rest of her glass of water, looking fragile and tired. “I should go to bed,” she said. 

“Yeah,” Cam said, “I’m gonna have enough trouble functioning tomorrow without adding staying up all night to it.” He jerked his thumb toward the door. “Thanks for invitin’ me over,” he said to Vala. To John he said, “We’re cool, right?”

“We’re cool,” John confirmed, mustering his strength to stand up. 

Vala put her hand on his arm. “Hang on a moment,” she said. Cam put his shoes on and left with a cheerful wave, locking the door behind himself. John pulled his phone out one more time and looked guiltily at it, but there were no new messages. 

“I’ll talk to him,” John said finally, putting his phone back into his pocket. 

“Good,” she said, not taking her hand from his arm. They sat like that for a few minutes, and finally she said, “Would you stay?”

He looked at her. “What, spend the night?”

“I get nightmares,” she admitted, “especially when I don’t feel well.”

John laughed softly. “I get nightmares all the time,” he said. 

“Then we can keep one another company,” she said, hopeful and brittle all at the same time.

“Sure,” he said. “If you don’t mind a little bit of screamin’.”

“Well,” she said, “if you do it first, you can’t mind when I do.” She pushed carefully to her feet, and John took her arm. 

 

Her bed was spread with the quilt he’d made her. 

 

It wasn’t the best night of sleep he’d had— Vala didn’t scream in her sleep, she just cried and cried— but it was better than any he’d had since he came back to Earth. The hangover, John decided, as he shuffled home to plug his phone in and shower the alcohol residue off his body, was worth it. 

 


End file.
